City of Stars by Mary Hoffman

Author:Mary Hoffman
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Published: 2003-07-15T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

First Flight

It was a good job that on the last day of term, Barnsbury Comprehensive finished at lunchtime. Not much work was done in the morning either, as students luxuriated in the prospect of seven weeks of freedom. About half had holidays in the sun to look forward to; the others were just happy to anticipate days of idleness in an English summer, even those with long reading lists for their A-levels.

All the talk of summer plans made Georgia think about her own. She had the coming fortnight with Alice in Devon and immediately after that she had decided to help Falco ‘translate’. She was supposed to be going to France with Ralph and Maura in late August – without Russell, thank goodness. In fact the great bonus of the summer for her was that Russell would be working at Tesco’s for the first five weeks, then going to Greece with his mates for a fortnight.

Now she ticked off days on her fingers; the Stellata was going to be held on the fifteenth of August. That much she knew. ‘It is always then,’ Paolo had told her. ‘The Day of the Lady, though our friends the Manoush would say the Day of the Goddess.’ That was a Friday and she really wanted to see it, even though there could be problems, because it happened at about seven in the evening, as shadows began to fall.

The French holiday was due to start the weekend after the Stellata. Georgia was grateful to Ralph’s work; he was re-wiring an old house and there was no chance to get away till that was finished. The holiday details had been sorted out only recently, because Maura had nagged until Ralph had agreed a date and then she had booked a cancellation – one week in the Languedoc, because he said he couldn’t manage longer away. But if it had been a week earlier, Georgia wouldn’t have been able to get to the race.

Georgia spent the afternoon in her room preparing for the trial stravagation they were planning for that night. She tried hard to remember Falco’s size. He was slight for a thirteen-year-old, but she thought he could get away with an old T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms of hers. And his feet were small; he could fit into a pair of her trainers. He wouldn’t look very smart but at least he shouldn’t attract too much attention, apart from his walking, of course.

Georgia had snaffled two walking sticks from the umbrella-stand, spreading out the many umbrellas, bicycle pumps and even an old plastic sword of Russell’s to conceal their absence. But they didn’t look much like anything that would be given to a young boy. Crutches would be better, but Georgia had no idea how to get hold of a pair. She hid the sticks at the back of her cupboard.

That left the difficult question of underwear. Georgia had no idea what Talians wore under their day clothes and didn’t really want to ask.

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